


Lena Luthor's Guide to Supervillainy: In 4 Easy Steps

by writerbot5000



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Lena is really bad at being a supervillain, mostly comedic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-11 12:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19928398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerbot5000/pseuds/writerbot5000
Summary: Lena decides she has no choice but to embrace her destiny and become a supervillain. Turns out she's really bad at it. For some reason though none of her friends suspect anything and they keep being so damned supportive.





	Lena Luthor's Guide to Supervillainy: In 4 Easy Steps

During yet another night of heavy drinking Lena comes to a revelation. If the public doesn’t trust her, her friends don’t trust her and even the woman she’s in love with, her supposed best friend, can’t trust her, then there’s no point in fighting fate. She’ll just have to become a supervillain. 

While Lena has dealt with more than her fair share of villains over the years, it doesn’t take long for her to realize that she has no experience with actually being a supervillain. If she’s going to do this, she wants to do it right. So she pulls out her journal, one Kara gave her on her birthday, and begins compiling a to-do list. 

**Step 1: Steal advanced alien technology**

Sure, Lena already has access to alien technology, like a lot of alien technology, both through her work with the DEO and from L-Corp partnering with several smaller companies run by aliens. But if she’s going to be a supervillain, she figures that stealing something new is as good a place to start as any. 

Thanks to her consulting work, Lena already has level 4 access to the DEO facility in National City so that seems like the obvious location to target. 

It’s now 3 AM and she’s sobered up a little so she has an Uber drop her off near the DEO, strides in past the sleepy guard on duty and instead of heading to her normal lab, she sneaks into one of the restricted areas, hacks a door lock and gets access to one of the rooms housing alien tech. 

From her conversations with Alex she knows that the room is used for testing and analysis, which is clear from the number of strange devices sitting out on the tables, most looking like they’re in the process of being taken apart. Each item is labeled but only with a string of numbers and letters; there’s nothing on the label to identify what each item is actually does. 

Lena is wondering if she could hack into the DEO servers and find a manifest that would tell her what is worth stealing when she hears a routine patrol coming down the hall. 

Frantically looking around, Lena spots spots a shiny blue box with a narrow slot in the top of it sitting on one of the tables in the corner of the room. It’s the only thing in the room that isn’t at least partially disassembled so she grabs it and ducks behind one of the tables until the patrol passes. Once they do, she escapes with her prize.

Lena still has no idea what it does, when she gets home but it’s 4 AM, she’s still a little drunk and she has a meeting at 7 AM conference call so she sets the box down on her counter and resolves to figure out what it does the next day before passing out on her bed. 

It looks like Lena’s run as a supervillain is going to be extremely short-lived when in her office, just a few short hours later, her assistant lets her know that there’s an Alex Danvers here to see her. She makes a note to look into building a secret exit if she gets out of this and tells her assistant to let the woman in. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Director?” Lena asks once Alex enters her office.

Lena was expecting to be arrested, or at least threatened. She definitely was not expecting Alex to tell her, “It looks like someone is trying to frame you again.” 

“Pardon me?”

“Someone broke into the DEO offices last night,” the director explained. “They somehow got a copy of your keycard and used it to enter the building; we have security footage of ‘you’ walking into the building at 3 AM and then breaking into one of the rooms where we test alien tech just a few minutes later.” 

“And you don’t think it was me?” Lena asked, confused.

“Of course not, Lena!” Alex protested, hands on her hips in an apparently unconscious imitation of her sister. Or maybe Supergirl did the hands on hips thing in an imitation of Alex? “I’ll admit it, when your mom framed you for stealing Kryptonite, I completely fell for it. But I’m not going to fall for the same trick twice.” 

“You’re not?”

“Nope. We’ve been friends for years now and despite what some of those assholes on TV might say, I know you aren’t your brother. I know you would never do this.” 

“You do?” Lena asked, finding herself becoming increasingly dumb-founded as this conversation went on. 

“Of course I do,” Alex said, placing a reassuring hand on Lena’s before joking, “Besides if I started doubting you now, Kara would disown me. She was mad enough the first time I thought you were guilty. You may not have noticed, but she’s kind of a big fan.” 

Lena wasn’t sure if Alex really believed in her or if this was all some sort of trick to try and throw Lena off her game, but either way she figured it would be best to play along. “Do you have any idea who might be trying to frame me?” 

“Not yet. We only discovered the break-in about an hour ago. We don’t know yet if they doctored the footage or if it was a shapeshifter or maybe an image inducer. Whoever it is must think we’re idiots.” 

“Why’s that?” 

“It’s all so sloppy. Whoever it was just walked in the front door, went through security and used your keycard to get in. If you were really trying to break in, you’d be a hell of a lot smarter about it than that. And you wanted to steal something from our labs, I’m sure you’d steal something a hell of a lot more interesting than a high-tech toaster.” 

“A toaster?” Lena asked, brows furrowed. 

Alex laughed. “Yeah, looks like the thief just grabbed the first thing they could get their hands on. There was so much stuff in that room they could have taken; there was an antimatter ray, a cloaking device, all kinds of stuff. And they took a toaster. Admittedly it’s a toaster from Borix 8, but still just a toaster. We weren’t even testing with it. Some of the lab techs were using it for their lunches.” 

“Wow, uh, what a terrible thief they must be.” 

“Oh, before I forget, do you still have your keycard?”

“Yes, it’s right here,” Lena said before realizing it might have been better to lie about that. 

Alex sighed, “Yeah, I figured you still did. L-Corp apparently has better security than we do. They must have compromised our database then if they were able to produce a fake card.” Alex slide a new badge across the table to the CEO. “Here’s a new card for the building. I’ve got Brainy working on coming up with a whole new card security system, but since the thief has a copy of your card, you’ll have to use this new one for now.” 

“Uh, right,” Lena said, taking the card. “Of course. Thank you.” 

“Don’t worry, Lena. We’ll get to the bottom of this,” the woman reassured before making her way out of the building. 

Lena had to kick herself. How could she have been so stupid as to use her own card when she snuck into the building? And she definitely should have done something about the cameras. Was she asking to get caught? No more capers while she was drinking. 

Lena wasn’t sure why Alex had let her get away with it. No matter what she said, surely she couldn’t have missed the obvious clues that the CEO had left. The only possible explanation was that the DEO Director was just pretending to think she was innocent so she could keep Lena off-guard while Alex tried to find out what her ultimate plan was. 

Lena was going to have to be more careful. It wouldn’t do to get caught before she had even come up with a supervillain name.

**Step 2: Do mad science**

After she had realized just how dangerous the Harun-El could be, Lena had shut down her L-Corp black budget research. But now she was able to easily re-allocate those funds back to her black budget so she could do some new science. 

The obvious option that came to mind was to do some more experiments with Harun-El. After all, even though there had been some horrible side effects, James would have died without her research. Ultimately though, it was simply too dangerous to make more Harun-El. She couldn’t guarantee someone else wouldn’t get their hands on it again had, and she wasn’t willing to take that chance. 

She did have some new alien technology to play with, even if was apparently just a toaster. When she took the device apart she found that the interior was remarkably similar to an Earth toaster, but the heating element was unique. Tests revealed it was able to toast bread, bagels, and other foodstuffs in milliseconds. 

Lena was able to figure out how to replicate the heating element and she realized it would great for welding. It could produce welds that would make buildings more earthquake-resistant. Better welding wasn’t really much use for supervillainy, so she forwarded along the schematics to Sam at the Metropolis office so something could come of it. 

With the toaster exhausted as an avenue for supervillainy, Lena found herself debating where she should take her research next. Perhaps some sort of weather machine? That was a mad scientist mainstay after all. 

Lena was seated in her office, doing some preliminary research into possible inventions to pursue (if you count reading a BuzzFeed article on “The 20 Most Coolest Supervillain Inventions” as research), when all of the sudden, Kara Danvers was striding into her office, her expression uncharacteristically worried. 

Lena had continued to attend the occasional game night or other group gathering in order to keep up the pretense that everything was fine, but she had managed to avoid spending any one on one time with Kara since finding out the other woman had been lying to her. All it took was a few texts claiming that she was simply swamped at work and didn’t have time for their normal lunches. 

Kara had been all too understanding of Lena’s request. But the woman had also apparently decided that because Lena was so busy, that meant she needed to increase the number of supportive text messages she sent Lena. And at least 3 days a week, food from one of her favorite restaurants would be delivered to her office. Lena didn’t understand why Kara would put so much work into pretending she cares.

“Lena, I’m sorry for disturbing you,” the superhero apologized. “I know you’ve been really busy lately and I wouldn’t disturb you if it wasn’t an emergency, but you need to see this!” This, apparently being a stack of papers that Kara set down on the desk in front of her. 

“You know I always have time for you, Kara,” Lena answered. The worst part was that she wasn’t even sure it was a lie. As much as she wanted to yell at Kara and kick her out of her office, a traitorous part of her mind was practically singing with excitement at seeing the other woman. “Now what is it that I need to see?”

“The black budget fund, the one you created for your…” Kara paused, looking around to confirm the office was empty before continuing at a whisper, “Harun-El research?” Her voice went back up to a normal level as she explained, “It looks like someone has re-opened it. One of the other reporters at CatCo got a tip that money is being funnelled back into the fund.”

Lena resisted the urge to put her head in her hands. Why was she so bad at this? First she almost gets caught stealing from the DEO and now she can’t even move a few million dollars around without setting off red flags. She really needed to get on her game or she’d be joining her mother in prison.

“And you think, what that I’ve decided to start up the Harun-El research again? Maybe I’m trying to create another evil Supergirl clone?” Lena asked, some snark slipping through. “That’ll will be quite the scoop, ‘Lena Luthor: Mad Scientist!’ Maybe you’ll even get a Pulitzer out of it.” 

Kara, for her part, looked hurt at the comments. “What? Lena, you know I’d never write lies about you. I’m not here for a story. I came to warn you someone is trying to misuse L-Corp company funds. Besides, even if I thought there was a story, I wouldn’t be the one to write it. I told James I couldn’t write anymore stories about L-Corp.” 

“What?” Lena gasped, arching an eyebrow, far more surprised by this than when she found out her black budget funding had been compromised. Since their first meeting, Kara had covered pretty much every major news story related to L-Corp. Lena herself had offered the reporter exclusive after exclusive over the years.

Alex must have told her about the break-in; that was the only possible explanation. So now this was Kara pulling away. Not that Lena cared about whether or not her fake friends pretended to care about her or not. It wasn’t like Lena was still in love with Kara. 

“Don’t get me wrong, I love writing about you… er, writing about L-Corp, but I realized that I was crossing some serious ethical lines. No matter how objective I try to be, you are my best friend. I can hardly be objective when writing about one of the most important people in my life,” Kara explained, her cheeks flushed for some reason as she stammered her way through her explanation. 

Lena wasn’t really sure what to do with this revelation. That traitorous part of her mind that had been excited about Kara’s arrival was practically giddy, but the more logical part of her brain was still suspicious. After all, Kara had managed to hide her identity for years; the woman was clearly a skilled liar. “Oh, well, thank you, Kara. You can leave the papers here and I’ll be sure to get to the bottom of this. Thank you.” 

Having said her piece, Lena turned her gaze back to her computer, pretending to analyze some diagrams, hoping her ‘friend’ would get the message that Lena was too busy to talk right now. 

Lena watched the hero out of the corner of her eye and saw the woman’s face fall at the apparent dismissal. Lena felt the urge to comfort the woman, anything to wipe the look of disappointment off Kara’s face, but she squashed the urge and focused more fully on her computer, now pretending to read an email. 

Lena should have known by now that it would take more than that to drive Kara away; she really shouldn’t have underestimated the reporter’s tenacity. The woman did start heading for the door, but she only took a couple steps before squaring her shoulders and turning back around. “Um, Lena?” 

“Yes, Kara?” Lena answered, fighting to keep the frustration from her voice. Why couldn’t Kara just leave her alone?

“I know how busy you have been these last few weeks,” Kara said, fidgeting with her glasses. “We haven’t really had a chance to talk since everything with Lex, and, well, there’s something important that I want, no, that I need to tell—.”

Whatever Kara was going to say was cut-off by a gentle rapping at Lena’s office door. “Miss Luthor?” Jess asked, peeking her head into the room. “Your one o’clock is here.” 

“Oh, yes. Right.” Lena had forgotten all about her upcoming meeting with the L-Corp CTO after Kara had barged into her office, “Send her in please.” 

Turning back to the reporter, Lena said, “I’m sorry, Kara, but I really need to take this meeting.” Lena hated that while she was relieved to have the excuse to end their discussion another part of her was genuinely sorry. She was really going to have to get better at keeping her walls up around Kara. One five minute conversation and she was already struggling to remind herself why she couldn’t trust the woman who clearly didn’t trust her. 

“It’s okay,” Kara said, with a cheerful smile. Lena could see the woman was disappointed no matter how she tried to hide it though. “Maybe we can have lunch soon? I would really like to talk with you about something.” 

“Of course,” Lena agreed. “I’m afraid things are going to be crazy around here for the next little while, but I’ll let you know as soon as I’m free,” Lena found herself promising. Even as she said it, she knew she would have to do her best to delay any such lunch. Talking to Kara was too dangerous; the Kryptonian still had too much power over Lena. 

As the reporter left her office, Lena wondered just what it was that Kara wanted to talk to her about. Not that she cared about what Kara might have to tell her. The hero had proven she couldn’t be trusted. It would probably just be another lie. 

**Step 3: Hire some goons**

A few days later and Lena still hadn’t been able to find anything worthwhile to create or invent that would her further the whole supervillain thing so Lena decided a change of pace was just what she needed. If she was going to be a supervillain, she needed to have goons, right? It was Supervillainy 101. 

While L-Corp employed a large and highly skilled security staff, possessed with a wide variety of skills and expertise, Lena decided against using any L-Corp employees. Just because Lena had been left with no choice but to turn to the dark side didn’t mean she had to drag any of her employees with her. No, she would have to get outside help.

A quick Google Incognito search on her phone later, and Lena found that there were a number of gangs in National City that were operating out of the docks. She could hire one of these gangs to be serve as her muscle when she needed to do something nefarious; that would be much better. She didn’t really have anything for them to do yet, but once she figured out just what exactly her evil plan was she figured it would be good to have some hired goons on standby. 

After a bit more research, Lena selected the gang she thought would be most suitable. She waited until after midnight, figuring she’d be less likely to gather attention and headed down to a supposedly abandoned warehouse that was the headquarters of the Thunder Vipers (what kind of name was that for a gang anyway?).

It didn’t take long for Lena to realize she really should have put “Create a Supervillain Persona” on her To Do list before she entered a sketchy looking warehouse looking to recruit a notorious gang of criminals. She tried to offer them employment, but she was recognized immediately and the gang leader, a rather intimidating woman, decided that Lena would be far more useful as someone they could ransom than as an employer. 

Lena managed to catch the gang’s leader off-guard with a taser she had brought in case things went poorly. Unfortunately, even with their rather brutish leader out of commission, that still left over a dozen foes for her to deal with. Lena had taken some self-defense lessons over the last few years, but she knew she had no chance against so many armed foes. She tried to run, but didn’t manage to make it very far. 

Lena was putting her hands up, realizing that ironically her best hope at this point as that Supergirl would find her, when suddenly Dreamer was there attacking the thugs. The hero may be new to National City, but the woman was more than a match for few run-of-the-mill criminals (in retrospect, Lena’s choice of the Thunder Vipers as a source of muscle was looking increasingly poor). Within a matter of moments, only Lena and Dreamer remained standing.

“Thank you!” Lena sighed in relief. She may be turning out to be a terrible supervillain, but at least she wasn’t going to be taken hostage or murdered in a derelict warehouse. Lena just hoped that the hero wouldn’t think to ask what she had been doing in said derelict warehouse on the docks in the middle of the night in the first place. 

For once, luck seemed to be with Lena as Dreamer didn’t seem to have any questions beyond “Are you okay?” The hero was practically giddy with excitement, responding to Lena’s gratitude with “All in a day’s work! Or, well, I guess it’s like 1 AM right now so it’s all in a night’s work?” 

“Well, no matter the time of day, I appreciate the rescue,” Lena said, genuinely grateful. While they were technically on opposite sides of the law now that Lena was a supervillain, Dreamer had never done anything to break Lena’s trust (unlike a certain Kryptonian that usually rescued her in these sorts of situations). 

“Not that I’m not grateful,” the CEO said, “Because I definitely am, but I am a little surprised you were the one to rescue me. Supergirl has a habit of rescuing me.” Not that Lena was disappointed that Kara wasn’t here. Really, it was for the best that she didn’t have to see Kara, right? 

“It’s a bit of a secret,” Dreamer confided, “But she’s actually on a mission on Earth-1 for a few days.”

“Earth-1?” Lena asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“Oh, yeah. It turns out that there’s actually a whole bunch of Earths. Apparently we’re Earth-38. Though, I think the people on Earth-1 were the ones that decided their Earth was Earth-1 and that we were Earth-38?” Dreamer explained, scrunching her face in distaste. “Why should they get to decide what number each Earth is? I mean, I haven’t been to Earth-1 yet, but I’m sure we’re just as good as them, right?” 

Lena was more focused on the fact there were apparently a bunch of other universes than debating how they should be numbered. Maybe that would be a potential avenue for future research. Was there an Earth out there where Kara hadn’t betrayed her trust? Or maybe just an Earth where Lena was doing a better job of being a supervillain? Maybe she could find an evil doppelganger and get some pointers? 

Dreamer seemed to realize she had been ranting about Earth-1 for the last few minutes. “Sorry, I, uh, I just get a little excited sometimes. I’m still new to this whole being a superhero thing. Um, speaking of being new to this superhero thing, can I talk to you about something? Oh, not here though,” the woman said, gesturing to the dingy warehouse and the pile of criminals that were tied up in one corner. “Can I take you home so we can talk? The police are on their way to pick those guys up.” 

A short while later, the two women entered Lena’s penthouse. Lena didn’t really know the hero well, but on the trip to her apartment Dreamer had been what Lena suspected was uncharacteristically quiet. Dreamer seemed to be nervous about something. Lena wondered just what it was that she wanted to tell her. 

After arriving at the penthouse, The two women engaged in small talk as Lena poured them both a glass of whiskey. Whatever it was Dreamer wanted to say, the woman didn’t seem to know how so Lena gently prodded, “What was it you wanted to talk to me about?” 

“Right,” Dreamer said. “Okay.” Dreamer took a large swig from her glass. “Okay. Sorry, I’m still kind of new at this.” 

“Being a superhero?” 

“Yeah. Not that it’s not great, because it is. It’s like so great. But along with getting to save lives and beat up bad guys, it comes with a lot of responsibilities and secrets and well...” the woman paused. “It’s probably easier to just show you,” Dreamer sighed, before reaching up and gingerly removing the mask covering her face. 

“Nia?” Lena gasped. 

“Yeah,” Nia nodded. “Um, so I’m Dreamer.” Nia punctuated her statement with an awkward wave. 

In retrospect, it should have been obvious that Nia Nal was the new superhero in town. Her disguise was admittedly more effective than Kara’s in that it actually covered at least part of her face, but if you drew a Venn diagram of all the people in their circle of friends and the heroes and secret agents that worked with Dreamer, there was a hell of a lot of overlap. 

“Thank you for telling me,” Lena said. “Though, I must confess that I'm a little surprised that you would tell me your secret identity.” Lena realized she was more surprised that Nia would confide in her than she was surprised that the woman was a superhero. 

“Well, we’re friends,” Nia shrugged, as if that alone were reason enough. 

“We are,” Lena confirmed. It was true, they were friends. However Lena wasn’t sure if they were ‘Tell each other your secret identity’ type friends. They hung out a lot when the whole group got together, and they were on the same group chat, but Lena could only think of a handful of times they had done something with just the two of them (and even those few times had only happened because they were the only two in their friend group that enjoyed so bad they’re good movies). Kara was Lena’s best friend for the past three years and hadn’t said a word about being Supergirl and yet Nia was willing to reveal her secret to someone she went to see Troll 2 with? 

“You’re probably wondering why I would tell you my secret now. I know we haven’t known each other that long, but you’re a good person and you are my friend. So I wanted to tell you.”

“Just like that?” 

“Just like that. Like I said before, I’m still kind of a rookie when it comes to being a hero. Supergirl’s been mentoring me every since I decided to start using my powers. You know what she’s like. She’s super excited about having a new protege. She came up with lesson plans and everything.” Before Lena wouldn’t have expected Supergirl to be such an enthusiastic teacher, but with knowing that Kara was Supergirl, she wasn’t even a little surprised. 

“The last lesson we had before she had to go to Earth-1 was all about navigating the whole dual-identity thing. It’s a lot more work than you might think. And one of the hardest parts of it is ‘The Reveal’.” Lena could hear the capitalization of the term with how Nia said it. 

“The Reveal?”

“Yeah,” Nia nodded. “When you tell someone about your secret identity. Apparently the DEO has all sorts of rules about it, but I don’t work for them. Supergirl told me that it’s my identity and so I should be the one to decide who knows about me. And you’re my friend so I decided I wanted you to know.” 

“I’m honored,” Lena said sincerely. A small part of her was bitter that Kara couldn’t have been as honest with her, but she pushed that down. This was about Nia right now and she wanted to be happy for her friend. 

“Great!” Nia said, beaming. “What now? Do we hug? This feels like a hug moment.” 

“Sure,” Lena laughs, stepping up and giving her friend a hug. 

“Thanks for being so great about this. I don’t know if you could tell, but I was pretty nervous. This was actually my first time telling someone about my secret identity. I mean I’ve had lots of practice telling people that I’m a trans woman, but this was the first time I’ve been all, ‘Hey, I’m superhero.’ There are other people that know, but they all knew about my powers before I became Dreamer. You are the first person I’ve told because it was my choice.”

“Are you planning to tell anyone else?” Lena wondered. 

“Oh yeah,” Nia said, pulling out her phone and loading a file. “I’ve got a whole list of people I want to tell. My roommate, a few people I work with at CatCo, you, of course, a few friends from back home, and my sister. I put that one at the bottom though because we are kind of in a bad place right now. I’m hoping I’ll be able to tell her one day though.”

“That’s quite a list.” 

“Yep,” Nia nodded, as she put a checkmark next to Lena’s name on her list. “I want to make sure I cover all my bases. Supergirl told me about how much she has struggled with managing her dual identities.” 

“Oh?” Lena said, raising an eyebrow, merely curious and not at all bitter about the fact Supergirl apparently had no difficulties managing her dual identities when it came to her.

“She told me one of her biggest regrets was waiting too long to reveal her identity to someone. And now because she’s waited so long, she’s afraid that it’ll destroy their friendship if she ever tells them. Supergirl just wants to tell her friend she’s in love with her, but she can’t because they have the whole secret identity thing standing in the way. How sad is that?” 

“Yeah,” Lena said quietly, trying her best to not look shocked at this new information. “That’s really something.” 

“Supergirl is always so full of hope,” Nia explained. “Like no matter how bad things get, she has this belief that everything is going to work out in the end. But when she started talking about her friend, she just seemed so defeated. I tried to tell her that her friend would understand, but I don’t think Supergirl believed me.”

“Which is nuts, right?” Nia asked. “I mean she’s such a good person. There’s no way that this friend, whoever it is, won’t forgive her for... Oh,” Nia paused, her face going pale for some reason. “Um, could we just pretend I never told you this. Not the superhero thing! I’m glad I told you that. The whole other thing about Supergirl being in love with someone? That’s probably something she should be the one to talk about. To her friend, I mean. Oh, crap. And I just totally outed Supergirl, didn’t I? Could we also maybe forget that I mentioned that she was in love with a woman?” 

“My lips are sealed,” Lena assured. Of course she was curious just who it was Kara was in love with, but she could see how bad Nia felt for revealing what she had; she wasn’t going to try and pump her friend for any further information, no matter how curious she was. Besides it was almost 3 AM at that point though so it wasn’t really the time for further discussions.

“Okay, great,” Nia huffed a sigh of relief. “I’m glad we had a chance to talk. Not the whole me being an idiot about Supergirl part, but the rest was pretty great. Thanks, Lena!” 

Once Nia left, Lena knew she should go to sleep. After all, she was going to have to be in her office in just a few hours. But she couldn’t help thinking about what Nia had told her. Especially the part she hadn’t meant to tell her. All this time, Lena assumed that her friends were keeping her in the dark about Kara’s identity because they didn’t trust her. 

But, at the very least, Nia trusts her. Why else reveal her secret identity completely unprompted? And Alex and Kara had both uncovered incriminating evidence that pointed to Lena’s new supervillain proclivities, but neither had come to the obvious conclusion that Lena had gone to the dark side. They had instead tried to protect her from what they saw as frame jobs and rogue employees. 

Most revealing of all was Nia’s admission that Kara regretted not revealing her identity to some mystery friend she was in love with. If Kara was too scared to reveal her identity to the person she was in love with, then maybe she had a good reason for not telling Lena too. Or at least something better than simply that Kara didn’t trust Lena. 

Lena found herself particularly focused on figuring out who Kara was in love with. Kara didn’t really have a ton of female friends. From how Nia had relayed the story, it couldn’t be Nia herself. Kelly was too new to their friend circle for Kara to have waited too long to reveal her secret, not to mention Kelly was dating Alex now and if there was one thing Lena knew about Kara it’s that she would gladly suffer in silence over doing something to hurt her sister. The more she thought about, the more she realized there was only one possibility as to who it could be. Only one friend Kara could be pining over. Kara was in love with Sam!

It made sense, Lena supposed. The two women had bonded almost instantly when she had first introduced them, rapidly progressing from casual acquaintances to close friends in a matter of weeks. They both highly valued found families. And they had the whole shared Kryptonian heritage thing going on. 

Lena could see how Kara’s secret would be a bit of an issue for the potential couple given everything that happened between Supergirl and Reign. Or at least she could see why Kara would be worried about it. But Sam would be a fool to let the fact that she was created by a genocidal cult of Kryptonian witches prevent her from taking a chance on a relationship with Kara. 

Lena thought the two of them would make a good couple. And she definitely wasn’t feeling a surge of jealousy at the thought of Kara and Sam getting together. And if she was, it was just because she didn’t like the idea of Kara telling someone else her secret when she still hadn’t told Lena. It definitely wasn’t because she still harbored any sort of romantic feelings for her former best friend. 

But was ‘former best friend’ even an accurate title for Kara? Lex had said that Kara had been playing her for a fool; that the hero never trusted Lena and had just been using her. Obviously Lena couldn’t keep considering Kara as her best friend if that were true. But if Kara was too scared to tell the woman she was in love with the truth, could it be that she was scared to tell Lena too? 

**Step 4: ~~Lure your nemesis into a trap~~. ~~Have an open and honest conversation with your best friend~~. Get really drunk. **

The following day was something of a blur for Lena. She would blame it on the less than three hours of sleep she had gotten the night before, but she had managed to get through her work day with less before. The part of her that wanted nothing more than to forgive Kara had been getting louder and louder. Lena did her best to shut that voice out, but as a result, she basically got nothing done at work. 

For once, Lena actually left work at 5. She still had so much to do, but she also knew that she wasn’t going to be able to get anything done in her current state. And since work wasn’t working as a distraction, shew knew there was only one thing that could quiet that voice in her head telling her to call Kara. Whiskey and lots of it. 

Too late, Lena realized whiskey had been a terrible idea. In the past the CEO had been able to use whiskey to numb herself, to avoid thinking about things she didn’t want to think about. But in her current state, it seemed like the more she drank, the more she dwelled on how broken things were with her and Kara. 

Even if the part of her that wanted to believe Kara must have had a good reason to keep her identity a secret was right, there was no way that Kara would forgive her when she found out what Lena had done. Why couldn’t she have just talked to her best friend about what she was feeling instead of deciding that taking up a life of crime was the best course of action? She really was a Luthor. 

The sadder she got, the more she drank, and the more she drank, the sadder she got. It was a vicious cycle that ended with Lena passed out on her sofa, a picture of herself and Kara in her hand. 

Lena groaned when she woke up the next morning, her temples throbbing and her mouth dry. If she thought the work day had been a blur, that was nothing compared to the blur her evening became. Lena remembered flashes of whiskey, then self-loathing, then more whiskey, following by doubts and self-recrimination, and maybe more whiskey, but it was all very hazy. Clearly her getting really drunk plan had gone just as badly as all of her recent plans. 

One small bit of luck was that it was a Saturday. On most Saturdays Lena would still go into the office for at least a few hours, but her Friday had been a complete write-off and that was without the added benefit of a hangover to further cloud her emotional state; there was no way she was going to go into the office today. Thankfully she had long since managed to convince Jess not to come in to the office on Saturdays (in exchange for promising she would take at least one Saturday off each month herself), so Lena knew her absence from the office would go unnoticed. 

After throwing up, Lena dozed fitfully in her bed for the morning before finally making her way back to the couch. Drinking hadn’t proved a successful distraction, but binge-watching some of her guilty pleasures on Netflix proved somewhat more successful. She knew it wasn’t solving anything, but between her pounding headache and the TV, she was able to put her problems out of her mind for at least a few hours. At least until there was a frantic knocking at her door

Checking the camera for her door, Lena saw it was none other than Kara. The other woman was crying; from the anguish on her face, it was clear that something awful must have happened. 

Lena would worry about exactly what was going on between them later, right now Kara was clearly upset so Lena didn’t hesitate, practically leaping off the couch in her rush to get to open the door to her penthouse. 

“Lena, I’m… I’m so sorry,” Kara managed to get out between sobs. 

Lena gently pulled her friend inside the apartment and wrapped her in a hug. Kara’s head was buried in her shoulder as the woman continued to cry wrenching sobs, occasionally muttering, “I’m sorry.” Lena just kept hugging Kara, rubbing her back in an attempt to soothe whatever was bothering her. It wasn’t until Kara managed to get out, “I should have just told you; you shouldn’t have found out like that,” that Lena realized just what it was Kara was sorry for. 

Lena had thought that this moment would come sooner or later, though she had always thought she would be the one to reveal that she knew. Sometimes when she imagined it, Kara would admit that she had never trusted Lena. That their whole friendship had been a lie. 

Sometimes Lena would fantasize about the very unlikely scenario where Kara would actually try to apologize for all of her lies. In her fantasies, she would sometimes laugh in Kara’s face. Or make some biting remark before banning Kara from returning to her office. Making Kara feel some of the pain she had put Lena through. 

Now that Lena was faced with the reality of the situation, she wasn’t able to muster up any of the anger or righteous indignation that she had always had in her fantasies. She only wanted to comfort her friend. “Why don’t we go sit down?” she gently offered. Feeling the still crying Kara nod against her shoulder, Lena broke the hug, but took one of Kara’s hands in her own and walked them over to the couch. With her free hand, she moved aside the blankets she had been using during her binge-watch and the two women sat facing one another. 

Lena continued to hold Kara’s hand, using her thumb to rub the back of the other woman’s hand reassuringly. “You know that I know?” 

“Ye—yeah. And I’m so, so sorry, Lena. I wanted to tell you for so long. I—I tried to tell you so many times. I’ve written so many speeches over the last three years, all trying to find the perfect way to tell you. And I was going to tell you on the plane, but you started talking about how much it hurt when Eve betrayed you and I didn’t want you have to go through that again. And… and then the other day in your office, when I told you about the black budget fund? I was going to tell you then, but you were too busy with work. That’s why I asked about having lunch with you.”

Kara heaved a watery sigh. “Those are all just excuses though, aren’t they? I should have told you way before then though. Like years ago. I was scared you would hate me. That we would lose what we had. You mean so much to me, Lena.” 

With her free hand, Kara rubbed her eyes in a futile attempt to clear the tears from her eyes. “But I shouldn’t have let my fear control me. I should have told you. If I hadn’t been such a coward, you wouldn’t have had to find out from Lex.” Kara shook her head. “And I knew that he knew. I should have known he’d try to hurt you with my secret.” 

Lena squeezed Kara’s hand, hoping to convey comfort. “Can I ask you how you figured out that I know?” 

“Oh, you don’t know?” Kara asked, eyes widening in surprise. “I was out of town for a few days,” Kara paused. “Sorry, it’s kind of automatic to keep things vague when dealing with my, uh, Supergirl activities. I wasn’t just out of town, I was on Earth-1, helping some heroes out on their Earth. Obviously my phone doesn’t get any reception on Earth-1, but as soon as I was back in on our Earth, I checked my voicemails and, well, I’ll just play it for you.” 

Kara pulled out her phone and a moment later and Lena’s voice was playing from the tinny speaker. “Hi, Kara! You aren’t here right now and I want to see you. You should come over! I can order pizza. And potstickers and anything else you want,” the recorded Lena drunkenly implored, voice growing maudlin. “I miss you so much, and you aren’t here. Why aren’t you here, Kara?”

Lena had absolutely no memory of making this call, but given how hazy her memory of the previous night was, perhaps she shouldn’t be surprised. Voicemail Lena sounded so broken. “Why did you have to lie to me? I’m supposed to be your best friend. Is it because I’m a Luthor? I’ve never cared about someone as much as I care about you. But do you even care about me at all? God, I thought of you and our friends as my real family and you were all lying to me. How sad is it that Lex was the only one that would tell me the truth? And you know what the worst—,” the message cut-off abruptly. Lena wasn’t sure if the recording time limit had been reached or drunk Lena had accidentally hung up.

“Oh god,” Lena sighed. “As you might have guessed, I was really drunk last night. I must have drunk dialed you.” She knew that drinking had been a bad idea. At least the message had cut-off before Lena could make what she suspected was about to be a declaration of love for her best friend. 

“There are actually 36 more voicemails,” Kara admitted. Lena’s eyes wide. That was bad. What else had she confessed? 

Kara must have seen the horror on Lena’s face as she added, “I haven’t listened to any of the others. And I won’t. I’ll delete them. I, well, I heard the first one and then I flew straight here,” Kara looked down at herself for a moment. “Which I’m just realizing I did without changing into my supersuit first. I… I just knew I had to come see you. I guess I didn’t really stop to think about anything else.” 

“It’s okay, Kara,” Lena assured, finding she still wasn’t capable of staying mad at her friend. Any doubts Lena had about Kara not really caring about her had disappeared as soon as she saw just how upset Kara had been at the thought of hurting her. 

“It’s not okay,” Kara protested. “I know how much you are hurting Lena. You told me yourself in that voicemail.” 

Lena squeezed Kara’s hand again, this time hoping to take comfort from the woman herself. Lena realized she was going to have to be the brave one and tell Kara about her own decision to become a supervillain. God, why couldn’t she have just talked to Kara in the first place? She may not be destined to become evil thanks to her family, but she sure as hell inherited their need to make everything so damned dramatic. She just hoped Kara would understand.

Lena took a deep breath, “I have to tell you something else. I’m betting I probably mention it on at least a few of those 36 messages, but it’s better if I tell you now. Lex told me that the reason you had never told me your secret was that you didn’t trust me. That you and all of our friends were just using me. I thought that if not even you could trust me, maybe I really was a monster.”

“You aren’t a monster, Lena,” Kara stated with utter certainty. Lena just hoped she felt the same once Lena explained what she had done. 

“I thought I was destined to be just another Luthor,” Lena explained, her voice cracking. “So I was like, why keep fighting it? That’s when I decided I was going to become a supervillain.” 

Through her tears, Lena went on to detail everything that she had done over the past few weeks. She told Kara about how she had created a To Do list, how she had broken into the DEO, about how she restarted her secret research program, even about her failed attempt at hiring criminal muscle that lead to her finding out Dreamer’s secret identity. 

Lena was unable to look at Kara as she detailed her many transgressions. She figured that Kara would, at best, be disappointed in her, and at worst, would hate her. She didn’t want to see the moment Kara might decide Lena really was a monster. When she finished her confession, she just kept her head down and her eyes trained on the floor in front of her. 

Lena recoiled when Kara pulled her hand away. She was surprised when just an instant later, Kara was placing that same hand gently under Lena’s chin, “Lena, look at me, please.” 

Realizing that she was never able to say no to Kara Danvers, Lena slowly raised her head and met her best friend’s gaze. She gasped when she saw that Kara, though her eyes were shimmering with tears, had the same look of gentle affection and understanding that she usually had whenever she was looking at Lena. 

“Lena, you are not a monster. I know you have a hard time believing in yourself, so believe me when I say you are one of the best people I have ever met.”

“But—” Lena attempted to protest. 

“You’re no villain, Lena. Let’s take a look at your supposed crimes, shall we? When you broke into the DEO, you didn’t steal one of the many dangerous alien technologies we keep on the premises. You could have stolen guns or bio-weapons or teleportation tech. Instead you stole a toaster. A high-tech alien toaster, but a toaster nonetheless. Which, okay, I would like it back because that toaster is like the absolute best toaster for bagels, and it’s not like it’s easy to pop over to Borix 8 to get a new one, but you stealing it wasn’t exactly a threat to world peace.”  
“Actually, um, I took it apart to see what I could learn from it.”

Kara’s face fell at this revelation. “Oh.” Lena realized that the first thing she would be doing once Kara left was trying to figure out how to get the toaster working again. 

Kara looked sad for just a moment before she pushed on. “That’s not really important right now. What about your secret research projects? Did you invent a death ray? Build an army of robotic killer bees?” 

“No,” Lena admitted. “I did some research on the toaster and figured out a new welding technique that will make buildings more durable in the event of an earthquake.” 

“Oh my gosh! What an evil discovery! Let me call the DEO so we can lock you up right now.” 

“I tried to recruit a gang!” Lena countered. 

“For?” 

“What do you mean ‘for’?” 

“Well, if you had hired them, what were you going to have them do? Work in a soup kitchen? Paint an orphanage?” 

“I never really worked out what I needed them for. I just figured that if I was going to be a supervillain, I needed to have goons, right?” Lena answered, shrugging her shoulders. 

“So what you are saying is that you didn’t actually have any evil plans. And what about when you learned that Nia is Dreamer? I assume as a supervillain, you immediately came up with some way to use that to your advantage?”

“Of course not!” Lena protested, even though it was clear from Kara’s teasing tone, and the entire course of the discussion, that Kara didn’t think Lena would. “Nia trusted me; I wasn’t going to betray that trust.” 

Even though Lena hadn’t meant it at a dig at Kara, the hero slumped slightly at the mention of trust. “I really am sorry, Lena.” 

“I know, darling,” Lena answered. 

“But that is another point in my favor,” Kara added. “You found out my secret; you… you thought I was just using you, but even then you didn’t expose my identity. You could have easily outed me as Supergirl; heck, just think of the readership boost CatCo would have gotten if you had run ‘Kara Danvers is Supergirl’ as a story. Or you could have lured me into a trap!”

At this, Lena reached over to the coffee table, grabbed her notebook and flipped it open to show “Step 4: Lure your nemesis into a trap.” 

“Okay, sure, you wrote it down,” Kara admitted. “But you also crossed out! And then,” Kara leaned in, “you’ve got ‘Have an open and honest conversation with your best friend,’ oh, that’s much better. Even if you did cross it out too.” Kara evidently kept reading to see the new Step 4. “Yeah, I think drinking might not have been the best plan.” 

“It got you here, didn’t it?” 

“True. But I really like the ‘having an open and honest conversation’ idea. And that’s what we’re doing now, right?” 

“You aren’t getting it, Kara!” Lena insisted, hands clenched. “When I found out you were Supergirl, did I talk to you about it? Did I think about all the times you have stood by and supported me as both Kara Danvers and Supergirl? All the times you saved my life? No. I decided that you were just using me. And then, I decided my only recourse was to become a supervillain. There’s obviously something wrong with me!” 

“But don’t you see, Lena. You aren’t a supervillain. You were terrible at it. You left tons of clues, like you wanted to get caught. The only reason you didn’t get caught is that it never occurred to us that you might be bad. Because we know you. We know you aren’t bad. And the worst thing you managed to do as a villain was steal a toaster.”

“So you don’t hate me?” Lena asked softly. 

“Lena, I could never hate you. I was the one that made you think I didn’t trust you. I was the one that hurt you. And okay, resolving to become a supervillain is maybe not the best reaction, but don’t you get it? Even with everything that happened, even with all your brilliance and determination, you were quite frankly a terrible supervillain. Do you know why that is?”

Lena just shook her head so Kara continued, “It’s because you, Lena Luthor, are a good person. Every single day you make the world a better place. You inspire me to be a better hero. You may not get the flashy headlines and there may not be any Lena Luthor statues just yet, but you are every bit the hero that Supergirl is.” 

Now it was Lena’s turn to cry. Not in anguish or desperation, but in pure relief. She hadn’t lost Kara. And now it was Kara turn to gather Lena up in a hug. Both women clinging to each other tightly, neither speaking, just enjoying the moment. For the first time in weeks, Lena felt like the world made sense again. 

When they finally broke the hug, Lena saw that she hadn’t been the only one to start crying in relief at their reconciliation. Kara did her best to wipe her eyes before adding, “I hate that you had to find out the way you did, but I’m so glad you know the truth. The other day I was telling Nia all about how hard it is to have two identities; the thing I hated most about being Supergirl was that I wasn’t being honest with you.”

Holy crap! Lena’s heartrate spiked at the admission. Nia had told Lena the same thing, but Nia hadn’t known that Lena was the one Kara had been wanting to talk to. Kara had only told Nia that she had been keeping her identity a secret from a friend that she was in love with. That would also explain why Nia had suddenly wanted to drop the topic; she must have put two and two together and came to the same conclusion that Lena was currently coming to. She had been wrong; it wasn’t Sam that Kara was in love with. It was her!

This was hardly the first time Lena thought she saw a sign that maybe, just maybe, Kara was interested in her. But usually it was things like Lena catching Kara staring at her lips or a hug that lasted just a little too long to be a friend hug. And there was the way that Kara was so easy to fluster. But up until now, Lena had always been afraid it was all wishful thinking on her part.

With Nia’s words ringing in her head, Lena finally felt brave enough to say something. “You know, when Nia told me that she was Dreamer, she happened to mention that one of Supergirl’s greatest regrets is that she waited too long to tell her secret to the woman she had feelings for.” 

“What?” Kara gaped, eyes wide, her face immediately flushing red. “Um, see… uh, the thing about that.” 

Making Kara flustered was familiar territory for their friendship so Lena couldn’t help tease, “It’s okay, Kara. I know.”

“You do?”

“Yes. I know you have feelings for Sam.” 

“Uh, yeah. Sam. You totally got me,” Kara attempted to explain. “She’s definitely the woman I love. I’m all about wanting to kiss Sam.” 

Any lingering doubts that Lena may have harbored that it really was Sam that Kara had feelings for were put to rest with the hero’s unconvincing performance. “You know, she’s actually coming to National City in a couple weeks. I could help you out. Be your wingwoman and all.” 

“Oh. Oh, boy. That… that would be great. I…” Kara trailed off before getting a determined look on her face. “No, you know what? No more lies. It’s not Sam that I’m in love with. It’s you. I wasn’t going to say anything today; I figured you should have a chance to process the whole ‘I’m Supergirl’ bombshell before I hit you with the ‘I’ve been in love with you for the last three years’ one, but that’s just me being a coward again, isn’t it?. And that’s what got us into this mess in the first place.” 

“One second,” Kara said before disappearing from view. Before Lena could even process the fact that the woman had sped away, she was back, this time holding a bouquet of roses in front of her. “I’m sorry they aren’t plumerias. None of the flower shops on this block carry them, but I hope these will do. For now at least. I promise I’ll get you some better flowers later.” 

“So, uh, I guess this is me telling you that I’m in love with you. I have been for a long time. Maybe even from the first time I walked into your office. Though it took me months to realize the reason why seeing you was always the brightest part of my day. 

“Your friendship is so important to me and the idea of doing anything to jeopardize that terrified me. I never said anything because there didn’t seem to be any point; I knew you didn’t feel the same way about me.”

“Wait, what makes you think I didn’t, don’t, feel the same way?” 

“Well, you never responded to any of my romantic overtures.” 

“What?” Lena asked, flabbergasted. Sure she had the occasional moment of thinking that maybe Kara was interested, or that maybe Kara was flirting with her, but it was never anything definitive. There definitely hadn’t been any romantic overtures. “You never made any romantic overtures!”

“I so did! Like when I brought you a donut from literally the best donut shop in the world. Or when I brought you Big Belly Burger. Or that time I brought you potstickers directly from this little place in China. Though I didn’t mention they were from China, of course, since I hadn’t told you the whole Supergirl thing yet.”

“Hold on. Giving me a donut was supposed to be a romantic overture?” 

“Well, yeah. They are donuts, Lena! I spent weeks visiting different donut shops all over the world until I found a donut that perfectly captured how I felt about you.” 

Lena could only laugh. “Darling, did you ever think about trying a romantic overture that wasn’t food-based?” 

Kara tilted her head, “Food is kind of my strong point, but I’m sure there were… oh! Yes! I remembered a non-food one! What about the time I dedicated ‘You’re My Best Friend’ to you at karaoke night?”

“Kara, the song is literally called ‘You’re My Best Friend.’ I figured you just picked it because of the title.” 

“So when I sang the words ‘I really love you’ you thought I meant in like a friends way? Dang it!” Kara huffed, an adorable pout on her face. “Alex was right, I definitely should have gone with ‘Better than Love.” 

“We can debate your song choices later, Kar. Right now I should point out that I’ve been flirting with you for years.”

“No you haven’t!” Kara protested. “I definitely would have noticed if you were flirting with me.” 

“What about the time I filled your office with flowers?” 

“That was a thank you!” 

“How about when I bought a $750 million company just so you could keep your job?” 

“Did you ever think about maybe trying to flirt in a way that wasn’t money-based?” Kara teased, echoing Lena’s earlier words.

Lena just laughed. “I flirt with you constantly! And you can’t say you didn’t notice because you get so flustered every single time.” 

“Wait, that was intentional?” 

“Of course it was intentional!” 

“English isn’t my first language. Or even like my sixth language. And it’s not always so easy to read between the lines. I figured I was just misreading things whenever you would say something flirty.” 

Lena shook her head, smiling fondly. “Okay, so maybe we both kind of suck at this whole being clear about our feelings thing. So let me state this as directly as possible. I, Lena Kieran Luthor, am in love with you too.” 

“Yeah?” Kara asked, practically glowing. “Can— Would it be okay if I kissed you? I know we haven’t actually even gone on a date yet, but I have been think—”

Kara never had a chance to finish her statement as Lena put her hands on Kara’s shoulders and pulled the other woman into a kiss. 

Over the last three years, on the rare occasion that had let herself indulge in her wildest fantasies and entertained the idea that her feelings for Kara would ever been returned, she had imagined many different ways they might share a kiss, but the reality of actually kissing Kara made even her most vivid fantasies pale in comparison. When they finally broke the kiss, all Lena could manage was, “Wow.” 

Kara laughed. “Wow is right!” 

The day Lena had found out Kara had been lying to her had been the worst of her life. She had given in to despair and thought she was destined for evil. But now, as she snuggled into Kara’s embrace, she realized, Kara was right. She was a good person. And she was happy. 

**Step 5: Live happily ever after**

**Author's Note:**

> As happens with almost all my stories, this ended up being way longer than I originally planned. I hope you enjoyed it!


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